


Confidence, Or: How to Feel Like You're In Control When Really, You're Not

by NyeLew



Series: Turretverse [7]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: AI, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Turretverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-26
Updated: 2014-08-26
Packaged: 2018-01-20 22:09:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1527452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NyeLew/pseuds/NyeLew
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rodney and John are back on Atlantis, mostly safe and sound. Beckett has some new theories and information on the Wraith, and the settlement on the mainland is coming along nicely.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Rodney didn’t expect to hurt so much, even after he’d been checked out and pumped full of painkillers. It wasn’t even a physical pain, anymore; it was something else, something he’d experienced before but in a completely different way. Medical analysis of his situation at least showed that he was mostly okay, physically; the Genii had kept him drugged more than anything else to keep him disoriented and confused, resorting to physical torture methods only when he refused to give over information multiple times.

So in that way he supposed he was lucky, if he squinted. They hadn’t managed to escape the facility with anything particularly useful, either – not a live Wraith, thanks to Sheppard, not the Wraith datacore, not anything. Except him and Sheppard, which he supposed was enough of a win given the situation.

He’d had meetings scheduled with Kate Heightmeyer, the Expedition’s best psychologist, ever since the medical staff had cleared him for release. Before that, Carson had even returned from Hoff – apparently with some good news, although Rodney hadn’t been allowed to do any work since his return, so he’d been kept in the dark – to treat him and Sheppard personally.

And that was another thing. Sheppard had been tortured too, and apparently – according to the Atlantis grapevine, anyway, since the Major himself had been rather tight-lipped about the whole thing – much more severely than Rodney. Not that anyone could tell anymore, since Sheppard had been healed by a Wraith in some bizarre scenario that nobody else would have been able to engineer. Reverse-feeding, they were calling it, and Teyla had said some stuff about it being normally associated with Wraith worshippers (which were apparently a thing; fucking idiots). So although Sheppard had been mostly healed, Carson had wanted him in the medical bay for continued observation.

Rodney didn’t quite know how to relate to Sheppard. Not that that was a new problem, really; it was more of an outgrowth of a pre-existing problem where although they had similar interests, Sheppard’s history made it so that there was a huge gulf between them. Not even the torture had changed that, since Sheppard had experienced the whole reverse-feeding thing and that, apparently, was an ordeal in itself. And Rodney couldn’t help it, but he felt _angry_. Sheppard had been healed by a Wraith, undoing the damage of both the torture and the initial feeding process itself. Rodney, though, was left swollen and addled for days due to drug withdrawal and the painkillers he’d been put on in Atlantis.

He almost found it funny that, as a response to torture and persistent drugging, the medical staff had decided to dose him up with a variety of Earth medicines. Almost funny, and not actually funny, because he wanted to be doing something _useful_. He had work to do. Everyone had work to do. It wasn’t as if Atlantis personnel could just—go home and take the day off. Atlantis was work, home and everything else for the foreseeable future.

Fuck the Pegasus Galaxy. Ever since they’d arrived their situation and position in this galaxy got _worse_. First of all they thought they’d escaped the Goa’uld, and they had, only to wander smack into the middle of an ancient war between the Wraith and the Ancients, who had eventually _lost the war_ and retreated back to theMilky Way. And they were stuck here. Completely, utterly stuck in this galaxy because they didn’t have a fucking ZPM. Not that returning to Earth would be any kind of reprieve, since when they’d left Earth had been besieged by the forces of Supreme System Lord Baal – which was so bad that Rodney couldn’t actually bring himself to think about it. The System Lords had been almost trivial to deal with one-by-one, using guerrilla tactics and stolen tech. An all-out war against a unified Goa’uld threat was something else entirely, something he wasn’t sure Earth could actually survive.

They were fucked, plain and simple. They didn’t have any industrial infrastructure, they had limited medical supplies and _every single journey_ through the gate seemed to lead only to a deterioration in their position and safety. Kate – and he refused to think of her as ‘doctor’ Heightmeyer, since what she practised was basically tribal magic – had said that maybe his recent experiences were colouring his perception of things. He’d actually laughed at that one. _Of course_ his recent experiences were colouring his perception of things. He’d been fucking tortured and kept drugged for the better part of a week, and before that he’d been _shot at by space vampires_ , he’d witnessed a massacre of a planet full of _children_ that _he had basically caused_ and to top it all off he was _stranded in another fucking galaxy_ and even if he could go home, it was likely that home didn’t even exist anymore.

So, that was what had led Rodney to skip his scheduled meeting with one of the resident voodoo practitioners and instead sit overlooking the vast oceans that surrounded the Ancient cityship. He knew there’d be a fuss over his whereabouts when someone noticed that he was missing, or had missed his appointment, or whatever.

But Rodney didn’t care. Instead he just sat watching the waves crash against the city’s underside. The planet was beautiful, if mostly empty. But it was peaceful in a way that Earth could never be again, not with its massive population and development… and, of course, the looming threat of the Goa’uld. If they survived, if they managed to not fall to the spectre of the Goa’uld, the revelation of the Stargate Program and the existence of advanced aliens and technology would transform Earth and its immediate space.

This beat the medical bay any day.

*

Elizabeth had been relieved – to say the least – when Sergeant Bates had returned with both Rodney and John in a more-or-less intact state. Her relief had dimmed somewhat when she learnt of the torture both had received, and then even more after hearing John had been fed upon by a Wraith. It hadn’t exactly improved the situation when she’d been told of the ‘reverse-feeding’ that had occurred just afterwards, and the knowledge that John had freed a Wraith definitely hadn’t improved anything for anyone. Beckett had wanted a live Wraith for his research; Elizabeth, though, couldn’t exactly say she was disappointed John had enabled her to sidestep the ethical issues that would have presented.

She’d given the order for Dr Beckett to be brought back from Hoff immediately to treat both Rodney and John, and to study the after-effects of Wraith feeding. That was precisely why she had both John and Carson in her office, along with Teyla. Elizabeth had started to include Teyla in all senior staff meetings because she represented their closest point of contact with the Athosians, she worked with both Rodney and John on AR-1, and Elizabeth had given some thought to officially appointing her as a member of senior staff – as the person in charge of all things relating to Pegasus natives. Rodney had a meeting scheduled with Dr Heightmeyer, who had recommended that he take some time off work. She’d said the same thing about John, of course, but he had steadfastly refused to take any more time off than he thought strictly necessary, and physically, he was fine… so Elizabeth had allowed it, on the condition that he keep up his meetings with Kate.

“So, Doc, what’d you find in me?” drawled John, peering at the projection opposite them. Carson had prepared a presentation on his recent findings – both what had happened to John, and his research on Hoff. She was … interested, to say the least, in what he had discovered about both avenues of research.

“I’ll get to that, Major,” said Beckett. “First of all, I want to discuss the research I’ve been helping with on Hoff. It’s quite astonishing, and then I’ll cover what we’ve found out from the Major’s bloodwork, if that’s all right with you Elizabeth.”

Elizabeth nodded.

“The Hoffans have been working on a drug for, er, as far back as they can remember, really. They have vaults located all over the planet dedicated to storing the accumulated knowledge of generations and generations of scientists, philosophers, artists, writers… everything they produce, they make copies of and hide them away in these vaults. Their greatest achievement is _this_ ,” said Carson, and the image on the screen changed, along with some new text highlighting what, exactly, was interesting about the current image.

Elizabeth was glad he had something new to offer, since thus far it had been information they already knew.

“What does this represent?” asked Teyla. “I am not yet able to read your written language.”

“Ah, sorry, lass,” he said. “This is a drug that they’re working on. The structure isn’t the important bit, but they figured out a way of making humans immune to Wraith feeding.”

“How?” asked Elizabeth. “I had thought you didn’t understand the feeding process well enough to…” she trailed off, unsure how to end her statement.

“Well, I don’t. But the Hoffans have been working on this for nearly two hundred years; they really only need me for the other, related things that they don’t know. Anyway, that’s where the Major comes in,” said Beckett, beaming. “There were a number of exotic substances in the samples we took, but we think this particular enzyme is very important.” The slide changed again, this time showing another, different enzyme. “This enzyme – we’re calling it Wraith feeding enzyme 1, WFE1 for short – was the most common exotic substance we found inside you, Major. We think it’s the reason the feeding process itself doesn’t kill the victim.”

“So what does this have to do with the Hoffan drug?” asked John.

“Well, until now we didn’t know whether the Wraith feeding process was a two-way affair; now we do. We have evidence that there is a bi-directional transfer of enzymes and proteins – some of those are what actually nourishes the Wraith – but we’re no closer to figuring out what, exactly, they obtain – but some of those are probably designed to protect the Wraith from any harmful substances human bodies might contain.”

“This is all very interesting, Carson, but what does it _mean?_ ” asked Elizabeth.

“Thanks to the Major’s Wraith friend we think we might have something that can prevent feeding on humans. When the Wraith did its ‘reverse-feeding’ it released a second enzyme – we’re calling it WFE2 – into the Major’s bloodstream. We think that the presence of this enzyme tells Wraith physiology that it’s supposed to _give back_ energy instead of take it.”

“I thought the Hoffan drug was more of a vaccine,” said John, “not… whatever this would be.”

“Oh, it is, it is,” said Beckett, jumping ahead in the presentation by a few slides. “But I think, with some more refinement and using what we know _now_ , we can improve the drug. Currently, it kills as many people as it saves. The Hoffans are happy with that, but…”

“But we can’t be,” Elizabeth finished. “How will this help?”

“It gives us another way of developing a treatment against Wraith feeding, maybe eventually _reversing_ the effects… more generally, we think it could have applications in regenerative medicine.”

Elizabeth opened her mouth to say something to that – any of the things he’d said would be marvellous advances – but was cut off by Dr Heightmeyer’s anxious voice in her ear.

“Elizabeth? Dr McKay didn’t show up for his session today, and we can’t find him anywhere. He’s not in the sick bay, he’s not in his lab, he’s not in the refectory…”

Damnit, Rodney, she thought. He was supposed to be healing, not—not doing whatever it was that he was doing.

“Thank you, Kate. I’ll get someone on it right away.” She sighed, and rubbed at her temples. She needed time off, some time away from running the city – but so did everyone else and they just couldn’t afford it. They didn’t have the personnel, the equipment, and the _expertise_ for anyone to take any appreciable amount of time off. If she’d realised just exactly how stressful it would be she’d have recommended a triplicate command structure with three people performing every important role—but that was a situation for an Elizabeth with a time machine and not anything she could fix now.

“Rodney has failed to make his meeting with Dr Heightmeyer and he isn’t in the sick bay. Teyla, John – would either of you know where he might be?”

“I am afraid not,” said Teyla. “If he is not in his lab, and he is not in the sick bay, then I do not know where he might be.”

“I have an idea,” said John, getting up from his seat. “I’ll let you know what’s up.”

“Thank you, John,” she said, and watched him leave the office.

“You were saying, Carson?” she continued, determined to understand just what exactly Carson was proposing.

*

John knew where McKay would be. They’d spent a fair amount of their free time together doing one thing or another – testing crazy Ancient tech, playing the most ridiculously intricate game of basically Civ, stuff like that. He knew McKay wouldn’t go to their game room without him – they played that together, so he wouldn’t be there. The staff in his lab all knew he wasn’t supposed to be working, so he wouldn’t be _there_ either.

There was a place they’d gone once, after the M7G-677 Massacre. It was one of the lesser used towers – still well explored, so they knew it was ‘safe’ – that overlooked the endless expanse of ocean that surrounded the city. McKay would have gone there: it wasn’t used for anything by the Expedition, and it was safe, and he could go there without anyone finding him. Except for John.

He took a transporter and came out of it at a jog, headed directly to where he knew McKay would be. He felt a great sense of relief when he saw McKay sat at the edge, legs hanging over, simply watching the waves crash against Atlantis. He stood there for a moment silently, taking in the view, and then moved forward slowly.

“Hey, buddy,” he said, and moved to sit down next to him. “You didn’t go to your session with Heightmeyer today. People are pretty worried.”

His words met silence. That was okay, he supposed; McKay would answer or not answer in his own time, and at least he was—safe, now.

“The sessions are bullshit,” he said eventually. It had an air of finality about it that didn’t surprise John at all – when McKay thought something, he usually committed to it fully. “This is more useful.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Silence again. It didn’t feel like an uncomfortable silence so John let it go, assuming McKay would talk more if he was ready.

“I don’t want to give up off-world missions,” said McKay after a couple of minutes of silence. “This was a—a setback, but I’m not going to stop.”

 _That_ sort of surprised John. When they’d been in the sick bay together under observation he’d made sure to completely avoid any talks about going off-world. He’d assumed McKay would just decide to take a step back and appoint another scientist to AR-1, and John had accepted that – it was his right, especially after what had happened – but… he guessed not.

“Then you’re going have to be certified okay for field missions by Heightmeyer… and she won’t do that if you don’t go to her bullshit sessions. I have to do it too.”

“It seems so pointless,” protested McKay. “I _know_ being… I _know_ that I’ve got some issues about what happened. I _know_ I’ve got issues with being stuck in a fucking hostile galaxy full of space vampires. I get it. What the fuck can she do fix it? I’m better off just taking some more combat certs and finding a ZPM.”

“We can do that. But _first_ we both need to be allowed back on active duty.”

“You can’t go off-world?”

“Not until Heightmeyer signs off on it, and she won’t because I’m going to let you in on a little secret: I’ve been skipping my sessions, too.”

“Huh.”

Basically everyone skipped sessions with Heightmeyer  - it was actually one of the problems on Elizabeth’s most recent List – but even so, John wasn’t surprised McKay didn’t know that. He skipped over reading most of Elizabeth’s memos and lists because he didn’t see the point in him knowing about most of it. John agreed with him, but as the military commander of Atlantis he figured he should at least _try_ to keep up with her. McKay, though… that man only had time for the things he considered important, and endless lists of things that could maybe need some attention were definitely not something he considered important.

“So… you made a Wraith friend. What’s that like?”

John winced. There was that weird pang again, that odd feeling in his chest whenever someone mentioned the Wraith. He hadn’t told Heightmeyer about that one, since she’d probably make way too big a deal about it and nobody wanted that.

“We got to talking. I… there’s something different about this one,” he said finally. “I don’t know what, and I still don’t trust him, but he’s not like the other Wraith.”

“I didn’t get to read the reports, but …people are saying this one is a different kind. How many is that, now? Three kinds? Four?”

John shrugged.

“Todd’s really old.”

“Todd?”

“I named him.” Everyone else found that weird, but John found _them_ weird for _not_ wanting to name the Wraith. Made them less… scary. “He said he was there, in the beginning. He actually fought in the war the Ancients lost. Controlled a dozen Hives.”

“And you let him go?”

That one hurt, too. Nobody else understood his reasoning behind breaking Todd out, and they understood even less why he’d wanted to let him go afterwards. Beckett needed a Wraith for his research, and John could have delivered one right up… but he hadn’t.

“They had him for a long time, McKay.” Todd had been half-mad at the time anyway, talking more about the poetry of the stars than… than anything else, other than his all-encompassing hunger. Something inside John had connected with the Wraith, found something almost human inside that strange alien face. “He promised to break me out if he got the chance,” he said finally. He’d even promised not to feed on him, and to let him go when they got out. They’d been hatching a plan together, and then… and then Atlantis had come through, and John had felt… he wasn’t sure how he’d felt, but he’d felt something. And that was enough.

He’d been right, too. Todd hadn’t just fed on him and left him for dead – he’d fed, used the energy to feed some more on the people they _both_ wanted to kill, and then he’d _given back_ the energy he’d taken. It was. It was something else, something he hadn’t expected from a Wraith ever.

“Where was I in this plan of yours?”

“He said he wouldn’t eat you either, unless you asked him to.”

He got a blank stare for that comment.

“That’s what I said.”

And then McKay laughed. It wasn’t a full, deep-throated laugh. It wasn’t the sort of laugh you did when you found something funny, either. It was… it was a macabre kind of laugh, almost absurd given the circumstances. But it made sense, too, so John joined in.

And then they were silent again, just watching the sun dip under the horizon. Sunset. They’d been out there for a while, then – it hadn’t seemed like much time, if any, had passed. But it had, and Elizabeth would be even more worried now than she had been.

“Come on. Elizabeth is pretty worried, you know.”

John got to his feet and offered McKay his hand. He knew the other man, the usually dour scientist, was still aching and in pain from what the Genii had done – and he didn’t believe for one moment that the Genii leadership didn’t have some idea what was happening; like fuck was Kolya a rogue. McKay took and John helped him to his feet.

“Thanks,” he said. “For—”

“I know.”

Nothing more needed to be said. Not now, anyway.


	2. Chapter 2

Rodney had finished his scheduled talks with Heightmeyer. It had been useless, as far as he could tell, but he’d finished the sessions he had to do and then stopped going. But he was finally, finally allowed back into the lab. He’d been waiting for this moment for, well, ever since he’d been captured by the Genii, and as soon as he got back he found the entire place a chaotic, disorganised mess.

His underlings had been given free reign for far too long, and all it had resulted in was piles of paperwork on his desk and a mess of everything he’d so carefully arranged and organised. Kavanaugh, the idiot, had gotten most of his calculations wrong and if they actually attempted to use anything he’d come up with the Mega Turret would _explode_. He had a ton of files on his desk from the biologists talking about ‘diversity indices’ and what they’d found from their research. He supposed it was interesting enough, if you went in for that kind of thing, but he didn’t know what _he_ was supposed to do with it.

He had specifically chosen a whole fleet of scientists to be departmental heads, people who would sieve out the useless crap that he didn’t care about, that wasn’t relevant to anyone on Atlantis _right now_ – but apparently his … time off … had been a signal to just throw all of the protocol out of the window. Fuck that.

“You,” he said suddenly, pointing at one of his nameless underlings. “Take _these_ and give them back to—to whoever it is they belong to.” He pointed to the stack of files on his desk. “ _Now_.”

The poor young man practically jumped out of his skin and squeaked something at Rodney, who simply did not care. The stack of files and papers promptly disappeared and Rodney considered that a success.

Now, what to do? He’d taken a look at the Wraith stunners they’d been able to appropriate, and that was interesting… but ultimately useless since Wraith technology was—different. It was obviously partially based in Ancient designs – the crystals were exactly the same – but apart from that, Wraith designs were impenetrable. Initially he’d thought he could quite easily back-engineer them, and he’d been able to disassemble and reassemble one, but a closer look had told him otherwise. They had an organic component to them that Rodney hadn’t been able to figure out, even though he’d been able to disassemble and reassemble the damned things, and the Expedition definitely wouldn’t be able to produce their own.

Disappointing, but not all that unexpected. He could probably come up with _something_ based on the Wraith designs, eventually, but who had the time? It was definitely a longer-term project, one that would help them over the long term rather than in the _right now_. Since they’d come up with their rudimentary AIs all the plans they made tended to be on the medium to long term; he expected that had a lot to do with how the AIs could flag teeny-tiny problems that would multiply over a decade or so and become a big problem, so that was actually pretty good, all things considered.

As soon as he’d been allowed he’d written his own report on what he had taken to calling the ‘Genii situation’, and that had taken up some of his time… and then he’d read the other reports. That took up _more_ time. But now he was stuck for something useful to do. His combat training wasn’t scheduled for another three days; Teyla had gone to the mainland to oversee whatever it was she could oversee, he supposed, and his training started with her.

“Underling,” he said again, this time not pointing to any one of his peons in particular. Within a few moments the bravest of them approached him  - a dainty young woman, French, by the look of her Expedition patch. “Yes, you’ll do. I want you to fetch me the Czech. The AI guy. Then when you’re done bring me the biology department’s head.” He paused. “Not literally his head, although I can’t say that’s a bad idea _necessarily_.”

The young woman hadn’t left yet. _Why_ hadn’t she left yet?

“Well? Go.”

“Ah, oui!” she said, and then scurried away. The rest of the junior scientists in the lab shuffled about awkwardly until he shot them a glare. Nobody in the science division seemed to know how to react to him anymore, not since the Genii situation. That would change. He’d make it change.

He was going to be much more in control, now. There were gaps in his training, in his education – once, he’d never have admitted that, but he’d come up against his failings recently and now he was fully cognisant of where he was lacking. More than that, he was determined to actually _do_ something about it. So what if he was a civilian scientist? He was living in a warzone, and nobody was safe in a warzone.

“Huh.”

He’d just figured out something to do with his time. He glanced at his laptop and fired up the word processor. He was going to write a proposal for the entirety of the civilian science staff to receive more comprehensive combat and field training – even for the scientists who never wanted to set a foot off Atlantis. This was a warzone, just as much as Earth was, and a time could come where nobody would be able to avoid it.

So, Rodney was insistent that they all be ready. He knew he’d have to fight pretty much everyone on this one, but he was Rodney McKay. He’d get his own way in the end because he was _right_ , damn it.

*

There had been many new experiences for Teyla Emmagan over the recent months. She had learned much about a lot of different things, and she had begun to experience an entirely new way of life. The Earthers kept a careful track of the passage of time; that in itself was not unusual. What had surprised her was that they kept watch over very small amounts of time – seconds and minutes, and sometimes even smaller amounts than that – rather than the passage of day into night, winter into summer, and so on that was more common amongst her people. They preferred everything to be careful and precise, with not a moment unaccounted for.

Sometimes she thought that was why so many of them experienced great stress and discomfort, watching their clocks – which were useful, she had to admit – with an almost pained gaze. They seemed unable to enjoy the moment, to simply exist and not feel guilty that they were somehow ‘wasting’ their time.

It worried her that she had started to pick up that behaviour, that feeling, that if she were not doing something _useful_ – and who defined useful? – then she should find something useful to do at once. Life was what happened every day. It was the interactions between the self and the other – the sum of all the interactions, conversations, actions that had been taken over the course of one’s life. And life could be cut short so soon, without warning; it was better to live for now, and not to wait for a future that may never come.

There was wisdom in both the Athosian way of life and the Earthers’, she thought. Coming as they did from a world without the Wraith they thought on longer time scales, made plans that would not come to fruition for years, if not decades. Elizabeth had explained to her that Atlantis was always intended to be a long-term project, but that they hadn’t planned for the expansion of the Expedition to happen quite so soon.

But that was life, and it was especially the way life went in the Pegasus Galaxy. One could not make firm plans for the future, not always – the Wraith would come, or disaster would strike, or there would be sickness. But the Earthers were changing that, at least in part, for the people of Athos. And for the children of M7G-677, who would perhaps be better placed to adapt to the coming changes than her own people. Children always were the first to adopt new things – new technology, new words, new ways of approaching the world.

She was interested to see what the children of Athos had learnt from their new Machine teachers. In a way she found herself saddened that she was too old to benefit from the new knowledge the Earthers brought with them – she had lived too long a simple life and did not think she could attain the levels of knowledge that, for example, Rodney possessed. That did not mean she could not learn, however. She was no scientist: she knew that, felt it in her bones. What fascinated Rodney and the other scientists made her only mildly interested. Amazed, yes, and she certainly admired and respected the people of the Expedition, but her role was not that of a scholar.

She would fight. She was a warrior. She was a leader of people. That was what she knew, and that was what she would continue to do even in this new context she found herself placed. She would adapt and survive, and endure, and live to see a world in which the Wraith were no threat to the children, to the _future_ , of Pegasus.

And that was why she had taken the opportunity to visit the mainland. She would speak with her people, talk with the children, and see just what it was they had been learning. She would speak with the children of M7G-677, and attempt to make them feel at home. She had just three days to do everything she wished to do, since after that point she would help train Rodney.

At first she had thought that maybe he did not need this training, that he was not a warrior, but a scholar – and then she had realised that not even the Earthers were safe. In Pegasus, one was not often able to devote oneself to academic or scholarly pursuits – even those who did would be in a state of constant danger. The native Pegasus cultures had known this for untold generations and had adapted to it, but it was only just beginning to dawn on the Earthers. They were a strange people – and Teyla had learned that they were not _one_ people but many, united only by their shared world and enemy – but they were perhaps the people best suited to constant adaptations and change. They appeared to revel in it. They were explorers, discoverers, always searching for the next great frontier. She had been given ‘audio books’ when she had asked from some Earth material to learn from, and those had taught her much.

“Miss Emmagan?” said her jumper pilot – Anthony Daniels, who was neither a soldier nor a scholar, but a cook who had strong natural ATA expression. “We’ve arrived just outside the settlement.”

“Thank you, Anthony. Will you stay, or are you required back on Atlantis?”

“Right back to the city for me,” he said cheerfully. “I’ve got a hot date tonight.”

Teyla smiled, and then nodded to him.

“Then I would not keep you.”

She exited the puddlejumper and watched as Anthony flew it away easily, almost as if it took no effort at all. She wondered, briefly, what it would be like to fly such a thing – but was distracted from her thoughts by a crowd of children, among them Jinto, all wishing to tell her about the new things they had experienced.

All her anxieties about the growing rift between herself and her people disappeared – she was here, she was theirs and they were hers. This was home in a way that Atlantis was not, and could not be, not yet.

*

John had never been more surprised than he had been the moment McKay had come to him and asked for help with physical fitness training. He’d never expected the scientist to want to do that, first off, but even ignoring that John never thought Rodney McKay would _ask for someone’s help_. He’d been tempted to rib the other man about it, make some comment designed to rub him up the wrong way – but he’d resisted.

He could see that something about the other man had changed, and changed radically. Torture would do that, and he hated the Genii for what they had done. So he’d agreed, and offered him the chance to join him on his runs around part of the city. He’d found a pretty good circuit, at least for his own purposes; when running with McKay – who was he kidding, it’d be more of a jog to begin with – he’d need a shorter, less physically taxing, circuit. At least at first. He intended for McKay’s fitness to reach levels the other man had never even thought possible.

But that would take time, and first off he had a nice, relaxing jog lined up.

Well, it’d be a jog for him, at least. McKay would still feel pushed, still feel tired after it – but that was good, and definitely the whole point of it. So he’d arranged to meet with the head scientist just outside of his lab, and had arranged a circuit that would end up right back outside McKay’s quarters. When he arrived at the man’s lab, however, McKay was nowhere to be seen.

“Don’t tell me he forgot…” he said to himself. He opened the door – _with his mind_ (he’d never get tired of that) – and then entered the lab.

“In case you didn’t remember, McKay, we have a date.”

McKay turned to him, frowned, and then looked down at his watch.

“Huh. So we do. Is it that late already?”

“What are you doing, anyway?” said John, leaning in to look at his laptop.

“Oh, nothing – it’s not ready yet, anyway,” said McKay, closing the screen quickly. “I’ll let you know when it’s done.”

John wasn’t sure he liked it when McKay was secretive. It could only point to disaster – or, he supposed, something really cool that was still in the early stages. He shrugged.

“Come on. Let’s go.”

To his surprise, McKay actually stood right up and started walking out of the lab. He was already dressed properly for a run, which was a good start. They exited the lab and John got him to do some stretching exercises – no point putting him off this early on by forgetting to do essential warm-ups.

At first, John was able to keep up a moderate level of conversation with McKay as they made their way through the circuit. Nothing too deep, just small-talk really – stuff designed to make him ‘forget’ that he was doing physically unpleasant exercise. Eventually, though, McKay became too out of breath to talk. That was good: he was actually receiving a work-out.

Assessing the situation, John decided to add a slight detour to the circuit to prolong, just slightly, the amount of exercise McKay would actually be doing. He figured the other man could take it, and it wasn’t too much more anyway.

By the end of it McKay was sweaty and out of breath, and looked more miserable than John had ever seen him – except maybe when the refectory served anything citrus-based, even though he’d hacked the intranet and purged all menus containing citrus – but John was pretty happy with it. If McKay could keep this up, and really, really kept at it, he’d start seeing real results and gains pretty fast.

Apparently the nanites would do—something, although no one was quite sure exactly what the limits to this particular technology _were_ , to help his fitness levels. So that was pretty good.

“We should do a warm-down,” he said, and then led McKay through the motions of that. He felt pretty good, and useful in a way he didn’t normally feel – sure, he was the military leader of the Expedition, but it was rare he actually got to personally help someone one on one.

“So this is where I leave you,” said John, nodding towards McKay’s door. “Unless you want to shower together, you know, to save water.”

Nothing. Not even a smile.

“Or, you know, I can just… go?” he said, and then grinned. “You did well today, McKay. If we keep this up you’ll see real progress, I promise.”

McKay was still catching his breath, which John thought was pretty fair. All Expedition members had to exhibit minimum levels of fitness to even be allowed to participate, but what John had McKay do today had been a little more intense.

“Yeah. Sure. I just wish we’d found some kind of Ancient fitness trainer – you know, one that lets you stand there and just _zaps_ you with some freaky Ancient magitech until you’re basically an Olympic athlete.”

John smiled.

“That’d be nice, but until we do – you’re stuck running circuits with me.” He reached over and squeezed McKay’s shoulder, and then feel into a slight jog. “See you at dinner,” he said, and then went to continue his own run – what he’d done with McKay was just a warm-up.


	3. Chapter 3

Carson had been more than pleased when he’d been able to isolate several totally novel enzymes and substances from Major Sheppard’s blood. He didn’t really know, but he _thought_ that he’d increased his understanding of Wraith physiology by a not insignificant amount, although he really couldn’t say he was anything close to an expert. Earth’s foremost expert, certainly; but what he didn’t know about Wraith physiology and biology could probably fill volumes and volumes of books – or, he supposed, a few megabytes on a hard drive.

Despite that, he really felt that he had something new and exciting to offer the Hoffans. It wasn’t what they’d been working on, and it wasn’t what they wanted to achieve, but he thought that it was an interesting alternative that was worth researching. Essentially, he wanted to modify their treatment so that a feeding Wraith would instead transfer its energy to the human it wanted as its victim, turning the entire situation around on the Wraith.

It could be used in conjunction with the Hoffan vaccine, probably, as a sort of double protection – Wraith can’t feed, and when they _try_ to feed they instead poured their energy back into their victim. There were some problems with that idea, of course, but he thought that in time they could have a workable treatment. Doubt racked him, however, as he wasn’t entirely sure his way was a better way than the Hoffans’.

Not that their way would actually be a good idea in the current circumstances. All things considered, he thought it would be better to wait a wee while before rolling out any programme of inoculations – regardless of their decision about the direction of the research. The vaccine just wasn’t ready yet and it hadn’t even been through a proper round of testing. He could _see_ that it wasn’t going to be effective—at least not in any way _he_ was comfortable with.

Still, he had brought a number of different samples with him, along with some print-outs of his notes and theories on the Wraith.

“Perna, lass,” he said when he had arrived in the Hoffan doomsday chamber again – he didn’t think he would ever get used to it, not really. The young scientist looked up from her work.

“Carson,” she said, smiling. “Did your business with your people end well?”

“Ah, yes,” he said, and then left it there. It probably wouldn’t do to go into the gory details – aside from reasonable expectations of privacy between a doctor and a patient, he didn’t think he was really _allowed_ to discuss the Genii or what had gone on over the past week. “I have something that might be of interest to you.”

“Oh? What is it?”

Perna seemed to be actually interested in what he had to say, and not just because it could be of some benefit to her – Carson thought maybe she had a wee crush, although it was probably just wishful thinking on his part. An intelligent, attractive woman like Perna would have no shortage of suitors among her own people, people who understood her cultural context far better than he (although that particular feeling was probably just Elizabeth’s memos talking).

“I haven’t been able to acquire a live Wraith,” he started. He was genuinely upset about that, and disappointed in the Major’s decision to let the captive Wraith go, even if the doctor inside him couldn’t help but feel glad he didn’t have to experiment on a living, intelligent creature. “But I’ve learnt lots more about the feeding process and what goes on, physiologically.”

He placed his stack of papers on the table. Perna picked them up and flicked through them, and then placed them back down onto her lab bench.

“I am sure you have prepared a wonderful summary of your findings for me, Carson,” she said, “but I am afraid I cannot read your written language. There is much we do not understand about—about everything, but one thing we do know is that the spoken word may be understood by travellers through the great rings, but written language – that is something else. If you could tell me what you have found, I would like to know.”

Carson made a mental note to ask Rodney about language acquisition via gate travel – nobody had ever explained to him why, exactly, most alien races they met spoke English. Perna’s statement made him think that perhaps she _wasn’t_ speaking English, and that from her perspective, everyone spoke Hoffan—or whatever language was spoken there. How interesting.

“We were able to discover that the Wraith feeding process is a two-way affair. They both introduce and take substances from their victim.” He opened the file and took out a page with a 3D model of what he thought the Wraith feeding enzymes looked like. He wasn’t comfortable enough with them to publish them in anything, of course, but as an initial concept he thought they were fine.

“What is that?”

“That’s what I think the Wraith feeding enzyme looks like. I named that one Wraith feeding enzyme 1, and I think it’s what prevents sudden death due to the feeding process. From what we’ve observed – and what you’ve been able to tell us – nothing about the feeding process itself kills the victim. It’s astonishing because the body is put under extreme stress – I was recently able to observe the after-effects of a ‘reverse-feeding’, and…”

Perna interrupted him.

“How? _That_ is astonishing! We know that it is possible—or, we expected it was possible—because of the Wraith worshippers, but we didn’t think it ever actually _happened_! This is a major discovery, Carson!”

Carson smiled at her. What a woman! She gave him praise for something he didn’t even think was important, when he had what he thought was an even _more_ interesting thing. He supposed that was part of the gulf between their two societies – his major discovery could potentially lead to developments in the field of regenerative medicine, but the proof of ‘reverse-feeding’ was much more important to them.

“Ah, thank you, but I can’t really take the credit for that one… and that’s not what I’ve discovered, even though it’s interesting.”

“Oh,” said Perna. “Then what is it? I confess I am more excited now than I was before, but I cannot even begin to think of what you have found!”

This woman would be the death of him, Carson decided. No one as pretty and intelligent as she was had any business being so interested with anything he’d found; she should be off enjoying herself, not… not cooped up in an underground doomsday bunker with a musty old man like himself. But that was Pegasus, and he’d come to realise they did things differently, so differently that he was barely able to anticipate anything any Pegasus native did.

“We found _another_ Wraith enzyme that we believe is responsible for triggering the ‘reverse-feeding’ process. I believe that with some time and effort we can develop another vaccine, maybe to be used in conjunction with the Hoffan vaccine, that will both prevent feeding _and_ drain the Wraith of any energy it has.”

Perna was quiet for a few moments after he told her.

“What would that achieve?”

“We’re told that the Wraith prefer to take older humans for feeding,” he said. “This would drain the Wraith and reinvigorate the victim, probably killing the Wraith in the process. I think it’s something worth pursuing.”

He didn’t add that his preliminary work on WFE1 had resulted in some promising avenues of research on its own, though those would probably be far less interesting to the Hoffans than to his own people.

“That is certainly an intriguing discovery, and one I would like to pursue when our current course of action is complete.”

Carson frowned. He hadn’t expected that answer, but then – Perna was brilliant, and this vaccine was her life’s work. She wouldn’t want to stop its development for anything, especially since it represented what she thought was the salvation of her people. And maybe it would be, one day, but he had to be realistic and objective. He was a doctor, and a scientist, and as much as he would like to believe what they were doing would be a fast, easy solution he knew that it wouldn’t be.

“Lass,” he said, and then fell silent again. How best to phrase it? How to get her to understand? Within a few moments he had decided on his course of action, although it was a course of action he ordinarily wouldn’t do. It would make him feel awkward, and uncomfortable, but he would do it.

“I don’t believe the vaccine is ready for use yet. Small scale testing, yes, but not deployment.” He held up a hand to stall her objections. He wasn’t finished. He wasn’t even at the uncomfortable bit. “Do you know why _I_ was chosen to come here with my people on our Expedition? I’ve told you some things about my world. We have considerably more people than most worlds that we’ve ever visited. We don’t measure our population in hundreds or thousands or even hundreds of thousands.”

“Millions?” said Perna, eyes wide.

“Ah, no – larger than that. We have _billions_ of people, Perna. That means we have millions of scientists, millions of doctors, millions of people doing what you and I are doing. I was chosen to come here with the rest of my team because…” Oh, Lord, this was the uncomfortable bit. “Because I am the best at what I do. Since coming here, since we left our world, I’ve done things I didn’t consider possible. The people of my planet have achieved things we thought wouldn’t happen for decades, maybe even centuries, and _I helped them do it._ ”

There were other reasons he was chosen, of course – his strong ATA expression meant that he was always going to be considered for the Atlantis Expedition, but they’d only found _that_ out because he was part of that  <.1% of people the Expedition had even considered making an offer to. Many people had been involved in most of the advances they’d made, but _Carson_ had pioneered the genetic therapies. _Carson_ had helped with the medical features of the nanite treatments. _He_ was the head medical officer on Atlantis. He was brilliant, just like everyone else on Atlantis, and as uncomfortable as saying all this out loud made him, he was going to say it.

“And when I say that the vaccine isn’t ready, Perna, I _mean_ it. We still have time before the rest of the Wraith are awake. We can work on making it better, and then we can disseminate it to as many worlds as possible all at the same time. But it isn’t ready for that yet.”

Perna was silent again, for a lot longer than she was the last time.

“If you say it is not ready then it is not ready,” she said finally. “I will take your objections to the oversight committee in charge of the project, Carson, because I trust in your expertise. But we will not stray from the path we have chosen, not in the way that you want us to.”

“I can’t ask any more than that,” he replied. And that was true – he had said his piece, given his expert opinion, and what the Hoffans decided to do with it was their own choice. God only knew that Earth hadn’t acted on the advice it had been given time and time again – ultimately, it was up to the leaders of an individual people to decide what they would do, and that was the only fair way.

“We should get back to work,” said Perna. “There is a committee meeting soon and I would like to be able to bring them something tangible as well as your concerns.”

He nodded and allowed the young woman to direct him to the work he was to do that day. This was her project, her research, and he was simply an outside consultant. That was what he had signed up for, after all.

*

Rodney had never been so happy to receive a shipment of anything than he was today. The first set of components he’d had the Hoffans make was finally ready, and they’d delivered the whole thing to the alpha site that morning – well, morning for the Hoffans, anyway; on Atlantis it was still the middle of the night, but Rodney had been called first thing in the morning when he’d woken up and he’d practically sprinted to the gateroom to collect the shipment.

After checking over the shipment, which wasn’t exactly a small amount of things, he demanded that a team of marines – who weren’t actually doing anything important, as far as he could tell – bring all of the components directly to his lab and to the adjoining storage areas. The adjoining storage areas were technically his peons’ labs, but he was basically their king, and his word was law, so they were now adjoining storage areas. If anyone had any objections he was going to tell them that if they wanted to be in charge _they_ could save Atlantis, _they_ could broker trade deals that ended in Mega Turret parts and _they_ could be as intelligent and amazing as he was.

He was practically _singing_ all day. Zelenka had even noticed and made several pointed comments, but that wasn’t going to get him down. His _parts_ had arrived and he could finally begin actually making their second Mega Turret. He’d had to enlist Zelenka’s help on the project, of course – the man was their best AI guy, and apart from that the only one of his underlings who wasn’t a complete moron.

He radioed Zelenka as soon as he’d gotten to his lab and the marines had finished shifting pallets of components from the gate room to the science labs, and within minutes the Czech scientist had appeared in his lab with longing looks directed at the pallets.

“This is more than I imagined would be possible,” he said after a while. “It is beautiful.”

It was, although Rodney wasn’t quite so prone to flowery language as Zelenka. They had the capacity to actually build themselves some more equipment, and that was something that he never expected the SGC to go in for. Thus far the Stargate projects had been equipped directly from US funds, or with stolen tech, or with the few prototypes and models they’d been able to build. But _this_ … with the Hoffans as an ally the Expedition could produce significantly more things than anyone had ever dreamed of.

Mega Turrets were only the beginning of Rodney’s plans for that people, and if they proved able to make relatively simple things such as Mega Turret casings and components he would move them on to more complex, more interesting, things. Things way above their tech level, and things that _should_ have been way above Earth’s, too. But Rodney McKay was nothing if not a genius with ambition.

“We have plans for Mega Turret, yes?” said Zelenka. “Because I do not think we could design one from ground up. Is not practical.”

Please. Rodney didn’t doubt he could design a Mega Turret of his own, given the time and the inclination, but _luckily_ he needed neither because they had designs for many, many things with them already. He’d even had the 3D printer printing parts in preparation, and he’d whirred up the prototype nanofactory too. He’d even fetched the control crystals they would need from storage – or, well, he’d had an underling do it, but that was the same thing.

“Right here,” he said, gesturing expansively to a set of schematics on his desk. Rodney knew that the actual assembly of a new Mega Turret would have to wait. For one thing, the original was built by a combination of engineers and robots, and although they had engineers up to the eyeballs, they lacked robots.

“Are the pieces numbered?” asked Zelenka, peering at the array of boxes in Rodney’s lab and then glancing towards the doors to his new ‘adjoining storage areas’.

“Of _course_ I had them number each component. Do you think I’m an idiot?” He glared. “Don’t answer that.”

Before he had even decided to get them to make the Mega Turret components he had taken a close look at the schematics and developed a numbering scheme for the Hoffans to follow so that when it came to actually building a new Mega Turret they would be able to do so at least somewhat quickly. He didn’t doubt the project would take a few weeks to complete, given its complexity and the rate of disasters in Atlantis, but that was why he’d summoned Zelenka _now_ so they could get started before Rodney went back to off-world missions and the entire civilian science staff had to take time out for training. That particular plan of his still hadn’t come to fruition yet, but he was incubating it and it would be ready when it was ready.

“We need some peons,” he decided. He sent out a general message to his direct underlings – he hadn’t bothered to learn their names yet as none of them had done anything egregiously bad _or_ particularly good – to come to his lab at their earliest convenience (which he’d trained them to know meant ‘drop what you’re doing if it’s not going to blow up’).

“What is the goal for today, Rodney?” asked Zelenka after he had finished gathering together all of the components labelled 1.xx that Rodney knew would form the base of the Mega Turret.

“We have every component, every part of the casing and all of the computer bits that go inside a Mega Turret,” he said. “So what _we’re_ going to do today is assemble the computer.”

“And your ‘underlings’ will sort the components.” Zelenka added something in Czech to the end of the sentence, but Rodney didn’t care what it was. He was always doing that, and Rodney assumed it was either insults or something utterly irrelevant to him. It wasn’t anything he could actually do anything about, though, and Zelenka alone of his direct vassals produced good work without egregious mistakes so Rodney cut him a lot of slack.

If only the other scientists would get on board they’d receive the same treatment. Assembling the Mega Turret’s computer, though – that was something he and Zelenka could do reasonably quickly together.

*

It had been several days since Carson had told Perna his feelings regarding the vaccine project, and since then neither of them had discussed it further. It hadn’t created a wedge between them, as far as he could tell – after their work was completed the two of them had gone to a local… well, Carson supposed it was something similar to a pub, but not exactly, which is what they’d done most evenings anyway. That hadn’t changed. Still, he couldn’t help but feel like it hung in the air.

They hadn’t been able to work today since Perna had her meeting with the committee in charge of the project, and Carson had been busying himself by treating some of the patients housed in the doomsday chamber. There were many of them there – it seemed like the doomsday chamber was both the site of Wraith vaccine research and a centre for palliative care, and Carson didn’t want to assume the two things were linked but as he’d said to Perna, he was an intelligent man. He knew the two things were linked.

His fears were confirmed when Perna returned from her meeting.

“The committee has decided to commence phase one of the testing.”

Carson let out a breath he hadn’t realised he’d held.

“But we don’t have a live Wraith for testing!”

“They are not concerned. I have been directed to ask you to acquire a live Wraith, if possible, but we are to move ahead with a round of inoculations.”

“We’re testing it on the patients here, aren’t we?” he asked, although it wasn’t necessary. He knew that was why they were here, why they had been here ever since he’d said the vaccine was improving rapidly.

“They are terminally ill.” Perna turned away from him, and then in a few moments turned back. “It will not be forced upon them, Carson. They have all agreed to help us. In this way they can contribute to the future of Hoff before they die.”

Carson understood her reasoning. He understood the logic of the Hoffan committee. If he had wanted to, if he had been more adept with the technology, he would have run Machine analysis on the situation. That would probably suggest the same thing. But it didn’t sit right with him – the vaccine could be dangerous, and previous rounds of Hoffan testing had shown that it killed about half of all people it was used on. Was that right? Was this the truly moral choice, given the threat of destruction by the Wraith?

And was it even his choice to make? It was not his project. He was a third-party consultant hired to help with the project in whatever way he was directed; did that mean he wasn’t responsible?

“I’ll need to go back to my people,” he said. “To ask again about a Wraith for testing.” He left unsaid that he would rather not be here for the inoculations – he didn’t think he could sit and watch as these already terminal patients died horribly. He had read the Hoffan research. Adverse reactions to the vaccine were horrible, and he hoped his work had done at least some good.

“I understand.”

Good. He knew that she did. Perna was simply exquisite – intelligent, beautiful, passionate. She was a scientist in every sense of the word, and he knew that even Rodney, whose opinion of those in the biological and life sciences was generally rather low, would take to her.

“When all this is done, Perna… if you would like to come and work with my Expedition, maybe we can have that arranged. There’s not a lot I’m allowed to say, but I think… I think you would enjoy it, and you would be able to learn so much.”

Perna reached over and placed her hand upon his shoulder.

“Thank you, Carson. I… I will consider it.”


	4. Chapter 4

Elizabeth had gathered the command staff in her office for Dr Beckett’s debriefing. The situation on Hoff had advanced rapidly since his addition to their research programme and by all accounts it was ready enough for testing, albeit just barely. Beckett’s return had come at a fortuitous time, however, as Rodney had come to her with Dr Zelenka’s latest findings; with all of the command staff gathered in one place she could easily delegate and ensure that everyone was aware of their particular role. Rodney, however, had arrived late and been distracted throughout the CMO’s presentation. He’d been acting oddly of late, although Elizabeth couldn’t blame him given the circumstances. She’d seen a real change in him, although in what direction and how lasting she couldn’t say.

“And you say the Hoffans are ready to proceed with the first round of test inoculations?” she asked again, desiring clarification.

“Yes. Even without a live Wraith for testing they think that the vaccine is ready for a human trial.”

“Can’t you get them to sacrifice some rats or something?” interrupted Rodney before Elizabeth could respond.

“They’ve performed a round of animal testing already, Rodney. Although they don’t use mice, they used _monkeys_ instead, which I suppose is a fine model organism really… but that’s not the point. I don’t think it’s ready yet because in all rounds of testing – monkey, cells, even mice, since I insisted – and survival is only at about 50% in all cases.”

“If I may offer a perspective,” said Teyla. “In Pegasus, a survival rate of 50% after a Cull is more than could reasonably be expected. It is not something I would wish for Athos and my people because I believe that now is not the time for what the Hoffans propose, but it is understandable that they would wish to proceed now.”

That was something everyone from the Expedition failed to consider, Elizabeth thought. This was not Earth. This wasn’t even the Milky Way. Conditions were hard in both galaxies, and Earth (nearly) alone had enjoyed safety and room to grow. The Hoffans had experienced untold generations of holocaust and destruction, something which no society from Earth had experienced. Their psychology, their societies, everything about them had been shaped by their circumstances, circumstances which the Expedition members could only think about in the abstract. She would do well to remember that.

“Yes, that makes sense,” said Elizabeth, more glad than ever that she had created a position for Teyla that was within the command structure. Her input was _essential_ , she had come to realise.

“So we get them a live Wraith so it doesn’t go to waste,” said John. “If they’re going to go ahead anyway we might as well make it worth it.”

“That’s what I’d come to ask, yes,” said Dr Beckett. “They’re going to go ahead with the programme now so my work there is done… but I spent a lot of time working with their lead scientist, a lovely young… I suppose we’d call her a biochemist and I think maybe we should consider asking her to consult for the Expedition from Atlantis.”

That wasn’t a request she’d have expected him to make. It was true that Atlantis had incorporated many of the indigenous peoples into their organisation, but to a man those had been under rather difficult circumstances. It was unclear still if the Expedition had brought the Wraith to Athos, although privately Elizabeth thought that likely given John’s activation of Teyla’s Wraith transmitter necklace; they had definitely woken the Wraith then, and after that it was most assuredly their fault that the children of M7G-677 had been relocated… but the Hoffans had a thriving and vibrant society, at least in the short term. What could they offer this woman for her silence? Anyone with even a hint of patriotism – and Elizabeth thought that such sentiments would be both heightened and lessened in Pegasus, depending on the area in question – would feed information back to their government. Atlantis required absolute secrecy: they could not allow the Wraith to discover its emergence from the ocean and nor could they allow the Genii knowledge of its location and the wonders within.

She was saved from answering him just yet by Rodney.

“I totally approve of the place this is coming from, Carson,” he began, “but I’m not sure the medical contingent is supposed to be your own private harem.”

“Thank you, Rodney,” said Elizabeth sternly, though it was just an air. “What did you have to share with us?”

“Zelenka’s finally finished working on one of the projects he started for us _eons ago_ ,” he said, standing. His presentation replaced Carson’s and he started it at a rapid pace.

“This is called a quadcopter,” he said. “As you can see, it’s basically a mini helicopter. Veterans of the Stargate programme might be thinking at this point: why do we need these when we have UAVs?” He paused. “That’s what I said when Zelenka first mentioned it, anyway. But these things are actually _better_ than UAVs.” He clicked forward a few more screens. “This is Zelenka’s presentation,” he added, “so most of it’s useless. That’s why I’m skipping stuff.”

“Fascinating,” said John slowly, deliberately.

“This is a video of a lab test.” He clicked again and a video file started to play. Elizabeth watched it with more interest than she’d have thought; perhaps because _Rodney_ had elected to use Zelenka’s own presentation rather than one he’d made she thought it was probably more interesting than what she usually had to view. Her threshold for soil sample analysis was markedly lower than it had been before Atlantis. The actual prototype, however, sat on the table in front of Rodney. No corresponding control pad that she could see, which meant that she would be spared a test run in her office at the very least – although she knew the rest of Atlantis would not be so lucky once the Major got his hands on it.

The helicopter – or quadcopter, which made more sense because it had four blades – proved capable of hovering, of making complex manoeuvres and, as Zelenka proved in the latter half of the video, following the choreography to a simple dance.

“And the _best part_ ,” said Rodney after the video had ended, “they’re much, much cheaper and easier to make than UAVs. Absolutely no non-Earth materials.”

“How many do we have?” asked John, sitting up slightly.

“Well, that’s a prototype, so excluding that… we have none,” said Rodney. “But like I said, they’re easy to make. We can make them with boring old Earth metals. No trinium, no naquadah. Just good old Terran plastics and silicon.”

“That _is_ good news,” said Elizabeth. And it was: so many of the more useful things they could build or produce required exotic materials not found on Earth, which had already been in poor supply prior to their departure, and since they had arrived in Pegasus they had only what they had brought with them. “How quickly can we produce them?”

“It’s… we have to be careful with them,” said Rodney. “They’re _relatively_ easy to make, not objectively. And we don’t want to spend half our time making or repairing them when we could be figuring out how ZPMs work or turning the shield into a cloak, stuff like that.”

“So our next mission is testing remote-controlled helicopters?” said John. “I think I can get behind that.”

“Quadcopters,” corrected Rodney. “ _Quad_. Four.”

“Yeah, whatever. It’s still cool.”

“John, I’d like you to issue an alert to all off-world teams. If possible all teams should attempt to acquire a live Wraith for testing of the Hoffan vaccine, but that this is low priority and the safety of personnel and equipment is paramount.”

“Will do, Elizabeth.”

*

John caught up to Rodney after they left Elizabeth’s office – the man had taken off at a break-neck speed, at least for Rodney – to try and get a chance to play with the new helicopter. Quadcopter.

“So how do we control it?” he said casually. “Is there a remote control, does it have AI, what?”

Rodney laughed.

“Zelenka’s working on an AI program, but it’s buggy. So he worked up a control pad, but _that’s_ buggy, too.”

“So no chance of a test-run?” John paused. “Before we take it out, I mean.”

Rodney stopped, then looked down at the prototype in his hands.

“I guess it couldn’t hurt. Just don’t crash it or fly it over the ocean; we really do only have one of them.”

John smiled wide, and then set off again. Rodney could easily change his mind, or some emergency would inevitably happen which only Rodney or John or even Rodney _and_ John could solve.

There were far too many of those for comfort, he’d decided. Every member of the Atlantis personnel was absolutely critical, vital to the overall success of the mission; every loss was a genuine loss, and not just for the personal attachment that was gone.

“You know, this wasn’t even Zelenka’s idea,” said Rodney after a few moments. “It was this guy’s, this robotics professor at some university in… somewhere in north America; I can’t really remember because it wasn’t important. Anyway, Zelenka wrote a program for one of his pet Machines that scoured the Earth databases for stuff that might be useful and easy to make, and it flagged these.”

Interesting. Machines made him uncomfortable as a general rule, but the services they provided meant that they were an essential tool that couldn’t be ignored.

“What else did it choose?”

“There was a laser thing – not as good at the _zats_ we brought, but maybe useful for something – and I think some hydroponics thing. Nothing useful.”

“Quadcopters are cool,” he said. “Can I hold it?”

Rodney parted with the prototype quadcopter reluctantly. John actually had to tug it out of his hand, but then he turned it around and over and got a look at it.

“Cool,” he said. “Get the remote.” John had stopped outside of Rodney’s lab – after a short trip through a transport (which had become mundane shockingly fast) – and waited for the man to sneak inside and find the control pad in Zelenka’s adjoining research space.

Rodney disappeared inside and came back out holding a crude control pad.

“It’s funny,” he said, turning the device over in his hands, “but sometimes I think we’re better at crystals than we are at good old wires and chips.”

John shrugged. He couldn’t rewire – what would that even be called, actually? – a crystal-based anything, whereas he knew for a fact Rodney could dive into the guts of a puddlejumper and come out without breaking anything too badly.

“Let’s go fly it from the catwalks and see how many people we can annoy,” suggested John, setting off towards the nearest transporter. “You know, to see how it can handle fine manoeuvres.”

“Zelenka made it carry a glass filled with water across the room. Then the controller glitched out and the glass fell,” added Rodney. “But let’s see if you can do any better.”


End file.
